Lou had a birthday this weekend!

Like everyone else in the world, he has one every year, but I, for one, am really thankful for each year I get to spend with my husband. We’ve had some pretty hectic times in our lives where we were a little too busy treading water to really celebrate either of our birthdays, but the fact remains, I am thankful Lou Zant is in this world, and in my life. 

He’s a keeper!

Many people who know me well have seen the picture I put in the header before because it used to be the screen saver on my phone! But it’s my favorite image of Lou. Those rosy cheeks and that slightly naughty thought you can tell is running through his head make this image the one that truly captures who Lou is, no matter how much he ages.

I have a few friends in my life with young children, and sometimes, when I go a few weeks without seeing them, I notice how quickly children change. They get taller, or their hair starts to fill in more, and, their vocabulary increases and suddenly, you can have a little chat with this baby who used to only cry and fuss. It’s kind of heady to notice such things — for me, at least!

But the thing that I marvel at the most is how much possibility you feel when you look at a child who has his or her whole life ahead of them. You start to see them in the future, but in reality, you never really know what they will do or who they will be once they’ve fully matured. When they stop coloring outside the lines and start caring so much about how their friends see them, everything you thought you knew you’d see in them goes totally out the window.

And sometimes, who they become might even break your heart…

But I’ve been thinking about that a lot during my latest hiatus from posting on my blog, and the topics of possibility and hope have been the main two things I’ve been pondering in my private thoughts. I’ve even used the phrase “pregnant possibilities” in a few of my most recent journal entries because that descriptor feels so accurate. 

Knowing there’s a possibility growing inside of me gives me such a full and hopeful feeling, yet it hovers in a space just beyond my total understanding. But I know the things I hope for have the potential to change my life so profoundly, yet there’s absolutely nothing about the possibility that’s in my direct control. Which, for me, has made all of the possibilities I hope for complicated and maybe even a little maddening — yet, I cling to what might be possible in all of my prayers because I know God hears me, and, He’s a good, good God who resides in that world I simply can’t see.

Anyway.

I never met Lou’s mom or dad — only his amazing sister, who is Lou’s only living archive of his parents. But whenever I look at that picture of Lou, in his cute suit and bow tie, I imagine his mother slicking down his hair and kissing those cheeks and feeling so full of happiness and hope in her heart for her beautiful little boy. And, I bet her soul could feel all of his potential.

The other morning, when I was praying for Lou, I was thinking about how we sometimes stop believing each of us still has that same kind of pure potential when we’re older. I suspect most of us believe we know everything we can know about ourselves by the time we’re “over the hill,” and we begin to use our mistakes and our successes as the only ways to measure who we are and what we can still do. 

So many sayings like, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” and “Age makes you set in your ways,” become the adages we live by, and maybe both of those are more-or-less true. It’s so much harder to change when you’ve had countless life experiences that repeat the same lessons over and over again, or lessons that remove all doubt about the few things in life — like gravity and peeing into the wind — that we need to accept are always true. And then, of course, there’s pain, and loss, and deep regrets that spill over into the mix, too, and by the time you reach a certain age, the idea of being “pregnant with possibilities” seems ridiculous!

But when it comes to Lou, I don’t believe any of those things have removed my hopes for him. He’s had so many life experiences and done so many things well, and so many things not so well — but he’s always been fully “in” his life, swinging at every pitch that comes over the plate.  Winston Churchill famously said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”  That’s my favorite thing about Lou. He’s successful for a million reasons, but it’s his ability to keep trying that makes me admire him the most.

I love you, Buddy. You’ve got this!

“But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14